ABBA fever hits Stockholm as museum is opened

A fan sings with giant holograms featuring the members of ABBA at world's first permanent ABBA museum in Stockholm.

AFP: Jonathan Nackstrand

ABBA fever has hit Stockholm following the opening of a museum devoted to the Swedish pop legends.

The museum features a host of exhibits, including the glitzy costumes worn by the group, which disbanded three decades ago after selling more than 378 million albums worldwide.

The quartet dominated the 1970s pop scene with their costumes, kitsch dance routines and catchy melodies such as Voulez Vous, Dancing Queen and Waterloo, the song that won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest and thrust the band into the international spotlight.

They last performed on stage together in 1982 and split a year later, and have vowed they will never reunite to sing together again.

"There is simply no motivation to regroup. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were," band member Bjoern Ulvaeus, 68, said in a 2008 interview.

On Monday, Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad and Benny Andersson attended a VIP event at the museum. Agnetha Faeltskog was promoting her latest solo album in London and did not attend.

The state-of-the-art museum, located on Stockholm's island of Djurgaarden, allows visitors to get up close and personal with the band in interactive displays.

In one room, fans who have dreamt of becoming the fifth member of the band will be able to appear on stage with the quartet and record a song with them thanks to a computer simulation.

In another room, dedicated to the song Ring, Ring, a 1970s telephone will be on display. Only four people know the phone number: the four ABBA members, who may occasionally call to speak live with museum visitors.

Other rooms feature childhood photos, the band's costumes and instruments, gold records, replicas of their recording studio and dressing rooms, and their stylist's worktable.

Visitors get the band's inside story told "with humour and warmth. They'll get close to the truth," Ulvaeus, who was married to Faeltskog, said.

The museum says it expects to attract a quarter of a million visitors in 2013.

Stockholm Visitors Board spokeswoman Ann-Charlotte Joensson said the museum "will be an international attraction."